Chocolate
by Thursday's Dove
Summary: Mello and Near go way back - and it all started with a bar of chocolate.


**Hi, everyone! I have decided to take a break from my other fic, _Daddy Nearest_ , for now. In the meantime, I felt inspired to write my take on how Mello and Near first met and how things developed between them - I mean, Mello's voice was in my head and he was pretty demanding that I write something starring him. :P This was written with the possibility of being continued, I guess depending on how well this first part is received. I have some ideas, but it can also be left off here, I think. I can't really think of much else to say, so I hope you all like it. Thank you for reading! :3**

 **PS: If you happen to recognize the cover image of this story, would you mind PM'ing me and telling me whose it is, please? So that I may credit them. Thank you!**

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Something was wrong with the new kid, everyone knew that right from the start. Sure, they all had something wrong with them - namely varying degrees of emotional disturbances - but nothing like this. The new kid had holed himself up in his closet and was refusing to come out, Mello overheard from various sources, including the two adult teaching staff he was eavesdropping on at that very moment. The new kid hadn't even come out to eat. Every time they tried to coax him out, he would scream and pull away from them. He was a special case, for sure, and unfortunately none of the staff had been prepared for what they were getting into. They had never seen anything like it before - none of them had.

Mello found himself letting out a scoff. _This_ mess was his latest competition? Like hell he would ever become the next L. What had even been the point of bringing him in? But still, Mello couldn't let his mere presence slide - Mello had an obligation to himself to personally meet with any new Wammy's students. The goal was not to make friends, but rather to put them into their place early on. Mello was top dog around here and he made sure that no one ever forgot it, often using threat of violence to get his point across. Everyone who came through that seemingly innocent wrought-iron gate outside was competition. _Everyone_. But whatever. This was just some fucked-up retarded kid who wasn't even worth his time. He took a disdainful bite of his chocolate bar, rolled his eyes, and walked away without another thought.

Except later, he did find the other boy creeping back into his thoughts. What was his problem, anyway? Whoever heard of someone locking themself in a closet and turning into some kind of animal whenever someone tried to get him to come out? How obnoxious. And yet-... interesting. Interesting that none of the so-called professionals knew what to do with him, anyway. Mello decided right then and there that he would figure out how to solve this puzzle. Even though he was not particularly good at solving _actual_ puzzles, he did think he was pretty good at figuring out people, even crazy ones. Perhaps because he was just a little bit crazy himself, or so some of the adults said of him. Whatever, he just knew he was good at figuring out what made people tick, what their pressure points were... He knew this because he liked to push on them all the time, especially those of the other kids who got just a little bit too comfortable with him at times, as well as the adults who dared to dismiss him.

Well, he would show _them_ a thing or two.

They had given the new kid a room all to himself. Probably a good thing, considering the racket he usually made. It was off-putting, to say the least. Any of the other kids would have pissed their pants and ran away at the idea of approaching the kid - hell, half of them did whenever they heard him launch into one of his fits from down the hall. But not Mello. He walked right in there, right into that strangely empty room one day with the intention of dissecting the other boy, finding his pressure point, and pushing down on it, hard.

But things did not go according to plan.

Once Mello placed his hand over the knob and made to open the door, he heard a muffled noise unlike anything he had ever heard before - a sort of whimper or moan, like a wounded, terrified animal - and it did something to him that he did not expect. It stopped him in his tracks. And then for the first time, he noticed the unmistakable stench of human foul. He felt something inside of him shift uncomfortably, and it wasn't just the sudden churning of his stomach. What was _up_ with this kid? He wasn't even toilet-trained? What had happened to him before coming here? Surely nothing worse than what any of them had been through, considering they were all orphans, but still...

He all at once decided that just waltzing in there and opening the door was not how to approach the situation after all. But what to do? He couldn't just walk away without doing anything, not after committing himself and especially not after hearing that sound. He went to take a big bite out of his bar of chocolate to think it over and then realized that he had no appetite for it anymore. As he peered at it, at the smooth, untouched squares of decadence, an idea came to him. His hand clenched around it, reluctant to give up his favorite treat when he knew he had had to work hard at maintaining his temper to earn his allowance of it, but-...

He crouched down, folded the wrapper over the exposed end of the chocolate, and slid it under the door, just enough so that if he wanted, he could wiggle his fingers under the door and slide it back out again. Again, there was that pathetic moaning/whimpering sound (he would never admit how much it creeped the hell out of him), but he hovered there for a moment, crouched down by the small, thin opening between the door and the floor, listening for any more sounds inside. There were none.

"It's chocolate," he finally said. Still no response, so he then added, "Eat it."

And that was all he said before promptly leaving.

He was pleased to find later that evening that the bar, which would have been just barely visible at eye level with the bottom of the door frame, was gone. No one else had entered the room all day - he had made sure of that by volunteering to bring lunch and dinner to the crazy new kid's room himself, his helpful attitude fully stunning the staff into allowing him another bar of chocolate. Of course, he had not offered the kid the meals and had instead eaten them himself, but it had allowed him the opportunity to venture in later and make his discovery of the missing chocolate bar.

That meant that the other kid had at least moved it. Perhaps he had even eaten it. Mello found himself hoping he had eaten it. Rumor had it that getting the kid to eat was as impossible as getting him to come out that filthy closet, something which Mello had learned was only forced upon him before bedtime so as to get him bathed and put into fresh clothing. While Mello wasn't around for any of that - nor did he care to be - he was sure he had just gotten a leg up on the adults. He just had to go in for a second time.

With a slight sigh of parting sorrow, he again relinquished his chocolate bar to the other boy. "More chocolate," he said as he pushed it under the door. He waited nearby patiently and was rewarded by hearing the distinct sound of the foil being peeled open and the delicate sound of each square of chocolate being snapped apart one by one. Okay, so maybe this kid didn't really know _how_ to eat a bar of chocolate... but at least he _was_ eating it. Presumably, anyway. Mello smirked to himself, finished off the last of the sandwich that he was supposed to have given to the boy in the closet, and left for the evening, feeling oddly accomplished.

The staff found themselves quite pleased with their resident trouble maker's bizarrely good behavior as of late. Too bad for them, it wasn't so much an honest gesture as it was a way of manipulating more chocolate out of them. And it worked quite well, too. He continued offering his awarded chocolate to the boy in the closet over the next few days, until one day he decided to make his next move. He quietly approached the door, announced "Chocolate," but this time rather than sliding it under the door, he carefully cracked the door open, just enough to slip the bar inside. For a moment, nothing happened, but he held the bar steady, waiting for it to be taken. To his relief, he heard a quiet shuffling noise, felt a tug on the other end of the bar. His heart gave a great leap. He wanted to hold onto it, as if he could feel a connection to the other boy through it, but he let it go, releasing it to him, and then quietly closed the door back again.

Later still, he grew even more bold, and the next time he offered his chocolate to the closet boy, he dared to peer inside, to try to glimpse what little the small sliver of light would allow. He couldn't see much, but he caught the impression of a small child - too small for his age, really; he was 5 or 6, wasn't he?; but he was so little - adorned in white pajamas. His mess of hair was equally white, as was his pallor, and his eyes seemed oddly devoid of color as well. He looked just like a ghost. Something inside of Mello wanted to retreat at the sight, but he opened the door just a little further, wanting to get a better look at this strange little creature. The moment he did, the ghost let out a little cry, clapped his hands up by both his ears, and cowered back as far as he could, which was not very far at all. Mello quickly produced the bar of chocolate and held it out to the boy while saying, "Here. Chocolate." When he did not take it, Mello instead placed it on the ground next to him. The ghost child still did not take it. He instead began to shake his head and rock rhythmically back and forth, which gave Mello the forboding impression of a ticking time bomb. Alarmed, he retreated immediately.

Maybe he had pushed the other boy too far that time, Mello later reflected. He was irked by it all the following day, and the day after that, much to the misfortune of anyone who happened to cross him. This stupid kid was beginning to get under his skin. On the other hand, he hoped his own stupid curiosity had not messed up all his hard work. Just thinking of all that fake nice shit with the staff, not to mention all that wasted chocolate...

Oh _hell_ no.

He marched right in there - two days late but otherwise right on schedule - intent on throwing the door wide open and demanding that the little shit show some gratitude, but he stopped short when he saw that the closet door was already open. Just a little, but it was open all right. Mello was sure he had closed it before. More to the point, he had not been there in two days and he was equally certain that the staff would have closed it as well. He was especially certain that the other boy would not have opened it on his own. And yet it was open.

He crept over to the door, and just as he was about to peek inside, he heard a faint whisper, so light it might have just been a breath of wind.

"Choc-late..."

Mello could not help himself - he grinned. "Yeah, chocolate," he answered back, kneeling down just outside the door like usual. He took a breath and slowly pulled the door open some more, just enough for a small dusty strip of morning light to once again illuminate the ghost child. He tried his best to hold back his huge grin, but he only managed to reduce it to a wide smile. "Sorry it's late, but here you go," he said, holding the bar out to the boy.

He did not take it at first. He instead began to wind a lock of his alabaster hair around his forefinger and tug on it. Mello noticed that it seemed to comfort him.

"I don't think I have ever heard you speak before," he ventured conversationally, and then paused to consider. " _Can_ you speak?"

The other boy blinked at him - a quick flicker, really, their eyes briefly meeting before the ghost's gray eyes flitted away again - but he otherwise said nothing. He instead gingerly received the chocolate from the older boy and did something that Mello found most curious. He took great care in snapping each of the squares of chocolate apart - twelve in all - and took an equal amount of care in lining them all up on the floor, like some kind of little chocolate parade. Mello almost wanted to snatch them all up, thinking of all the dirt and whatever else was getting on them, but he instead watched as the boy then picked them all back up again and ate them, one by one. As he was doing this, he seemed to forget that Mello was there and focused instead on folding up the foil wrapper, neat as you please, into a perfectly symmetrical four-point star.

It was at this time, while stealing a look around the other boy's so-called living space, that Mello noticed a row of other foil four-point stars, all painstakingly identical, sitting along the wall of the closet opposite from where the boy seemed to prefer to sit. They must have all been made from the chocolate bar wrappers he had given him over the last couple weeks. He was both strangely touched by it and awed. How on earth had the ghost kid folded them so perfectly while sitting in the dark like that? He could not even find the words to ask. Besides, it seemed like it was some kind of intimate secret that he maybe shouldn't ask about anyway.

Mello took a moment to make himself more comfortable and sat fully onto the floor. He watched as the boy reached over and placed the new foil star with the others, tapping it gently until it fit into a very precise space and became part of the growing pattern.

"What's your name?" he asked, eyes on the ghost kid even as he was still busy with absently twirling his hair and eating a piece of chocolate. He again received no response. "Not taken a new one yet?" Still no answer, only that absent eye-flicker in his direction and then back to what he was doing before. Mello concluded that the other boy must be painfully shy, so he introduced himself first. "They call me Mello. They kept insisting on calling me Melodrama at first - talk about stupid. But I at least made it cool by shortening it and adding the second L, you know-.. because that's what I'm gonna be," he finished with a smirk, although he was surprising himself with how much he was sharing with the other boy. He never would have guessed that the kid they had carried kicking and screaming into the orphanage meant for raising geniuses would become his first friend. It was an awkward truth, to say the least, but there it was.

A moment of silence passed between them, in which both boys grew uncomfortable, although it was more evident in the other boy than in Mello himself. The quiet child from the closet, while he seemed for the most part calm, began fidgeting with his hair more insistently. Mello took this as a sign that he should get going. He found himself not really wanting to leave, but he had learned his lesson from last time. The last thing he wanted to do was stress the kid out and reset all of their progress.

"Okay, well-..." he said, "I'll be back this afternoon with more chocolate, okay?"

Mello stood, took a step back, and watched the ghost watching him as he shut the door, once again concealing him in darkness. There were a few shuffling noises as it sounded like the other boy settled himself back into the corner, but that was it.

It wasn't until later that afternoon that Mello realized that the other boy must have memorized his scheduled chocolate drop-off times. He realized this when he re-entered the room a few hours later, bringing a tray of that afternoon's lunch with him, and saw the closet door was once again ajar. So the other kid was learning him just as he was learning the other kid. And not only that, but there was something kind of whimsical about it - something that came across to Mello as something like-..

 _Let's play._

The other boy was inviting him back in - inviting him to play. That suddenly made this whole thing a lot more interesting. It was now a game to him and he was more determined than ever to win it.

Mello wondered how he could use this newfound knowledge and decided that he would be able to get the kid out of his little closet after all. He took their game to the next level by leaving a trail of chocolate squares leading out of and away from the closet and into the room itself. But it seemed the ghost was not interested in pre-broken pieces of chocolate without the foil wrapper, so Mello was forced to dig into his rainy-day stash and left a short trail of whole chocolate bars for the other boy to follow while he waited nearby. But that time, the small boy only poked out far enough to reach two of the chocolate bars before retreating back to his shadows, where he made quick work of both the chocolate bars and their foil wrapping. Leaving a chocolate bar too far out of reach was useless as well, Mello learned, as the other boy had no interest in fully leaving his dark ward when he apparently knew that Mello would not permanently deprive him of chocolate. After all, Mello wanted to win the game, not lose his trust entirely.

Okay, so he had to think of a new approach, one that was both different and the same - different, because his chocolate tricks were no longer working, but also the same, because the other boy was quite obviously affixed to familiarity and patterns. Mello took a look around the room. He could make it more comfortable - more familiar - for the other boy by drawing the curtains and blocking out most of the outside light. That should at least make it feel somewhat more like his closet than a wide open, unfamiliar space.

While he went about doing that, he thought of the way his little friend had lined up all the squares of chocolate, and then how he had neatly folded up the foil wrapper the first time they officially met. The kid like to play with things, play with them in an organized way. With this information, Mello finalized his grand scheme.

Without any preamble whatsoever, he collected all the dominoes from the common area - even going so far as to commandeer a set from one of the other kids, much to their mix of dismay and outrage. He brought them all to the boy's room, where - with the closet door partially open and therefore in full view of boy's line of sight - he began the tedious process of setting them all up in a row, leading from the closet over to the edge of the empty bed. The little boy appeared to be very interested in what he was doing - his eyes never left Mello's hands as they set up all the dominoes, maybe not as neatly as someone with a more skilled hand may have done, but set up nonetheless. Seeing how interested the other boy was in what he was doing, Mello felt more confident than ever that he was on the right track.

It was upon leaning over the edge of the bed that Mello finally grinned at the other boy, counted to three, and then flicked his finger at the line of dominoes, effectively knocking them all down with a single blow. This triggered not only the collapse of the entire line of dominoes, but also triggered a reaction out of the little ghost that Mello had not quite expected. The domino theatrics apparently upset him somehow, for he gave a frightful cry upon their collapse and appeared to be very agitated.

Mello was very agitated himself. He was beginning to feel like he had somehow failed and that this was all a stupid waste of his time (Why was he even bothering with all this domino shit anyway? Who the hell cared about some dumb kid who refused to come out of his closet? He should have just went in and scared the crap out of him early on, like he did with anyone else) when, all at once, the small boy came scuttling right out of the closet, as if on a mission.

Mello sat back on the bed and blinked at the suddenness of it all. Had that just happened? It must have, because there he was, watching the other boy pick up each individual domino and inspect it before sorting them all into piles depending on the number of dots at each end. Interested, he munched on that evening's dinner of cubed steak, potatoes, and greens (the last of which he did not touch, of course) and observed how methodically the boy then set the dominoes all up again, twirling his hair all the while. While he did set them up in a line the same way Mello had, the boy took it a step further and set them all up in ascending dot order, then descending, and ascending again, until he ran out of dominoes. Mello thought about knocking them all down again, but decided against it when he saw how fascinated the other boy seemed with the neat little row of numerically-ordered dominoes.

Mello let out an incredulous puff of air at the events of the evening. It all seemed a little too easy, even if he had been anticipating this outcome... Though, to be honest, he had been picturing a complete different reaction from the other boy. Mello was sure that knocking down the dominoes would have excited him, not upset him. After all, most kids were excited by such things. Then again, this particular kid was not the least bit like other kids. Oh well. He supposed he couldn't expect to be dead on with everything about the enigmatic, mute ghost child. Well, this was close enough, at any rate, and the results were all the same.

Additionally, his small misunderstanding did not stop him from bursting into Roger's office later that evening and brashly declaring, "You can fire all the people who you hired to work with the new kid now."

The old man frowned at him from behind his desk, much to Mello's eternal delight. "What is it _now_ , Mello? If the closed door had given you no indication-.."

"..-Then you should have locked it-.."

"..-as you can very well see _now_ , I am very busy," he groused, gesturing at a stack of papers before him and glaring at the boy from over the top of his spectacles.

"Oh it's nothing," sang the blond eight-year-old, deciding to cut right to the chase, "Just that he - 'N', isn't it? N is out of his closet now - and no, that's not a metaphor as far as I can tell."

The old man blinked at him in surprise this time. Mello drank it all in and took his astonishment as the highest of praises. This was his shining moment - his moment to truly stand out and showcase what he was capable of.

"What, cat got your tongue, old man?" he taunted, smirking. "Don't act so surprised. Why should any of your hired staff have been able to do it? They're morons and I am a genius, after all. I'll take my payment in chocolate, by the way."

"..He's really out of his closet?" Roger queried, sounding just a bit too relieved for Mello's liking. This was about _him_ and _his_ accomplishment - not about the weird new kid and his brand new ventures outside his closet!

"Yes, that's what I just said. I know you're old, but your hearing can't be all _that_ bad," he snarked.

"May I ask how you accomplished this?"

"Sure, you can ask. But why should I tell you? You sound like you don't even believe me."

"You are expecting me to believe someone who only tells the truth when it suits him? Interesting double-standard, don't you think?"

Mello scoffed, "This place is full of double-standards. An orphanage that is meant for raising geniuses, yet they bring in a retarded kid. Not to mention how it's a place full of kids being run by someone who actually hates kids."

"How astute you are, as always."

"Thank you."

"And well-mannered and resourceful," said Roger as he leaned back into his chair, steepling his hands beneath his chin, and closing his eyes for a moment. To Mello he appeared to be thinking over what his possible reward could be, and he wasn't wrong. A moment later, the elderly man opened his eyes again, and gave Mello the severest of looks, "Very well, you have convinced me. I have no choice but to thank you for your efforts, Mihael."

Mello froze. Roger only used his real name under two very specific conditions - in privacy and when he was in trouble, which was a lot. But he could think of no reason why he should be in trouble for helping out the new kid. Weren't they always going on about wishing he would get along better with his peers? Shouldn't this be like the ultimate trifecta of victory for him - make a friend, help someone, _and_ help highlight himself?

"Your actions should indeed be rewarded," Roger went on. Mello was beginning to relax, and then the old man said, "Congratulations - you have a new roommate."

Stupefied, Mello blinked. "...What?"

"Oh, come now, your hearing can't be all _that_ bad," replied Roger with a nasty grin.

"Roommate?" he echoed, feeling his temperature go from boiling, to zero, and then back again, all within the span of a few seconds. " _Roommate_? You're giving me a-.. a _roommate_?"

"Correction. I am giving N a roommate."

"So you're also evicting me from my own room?!"

Roger nodded. "I believe it will be for the best, for both you and N. After all, you _are_ the one who got him out of his closet - the _only_ one. It seems you understand him in a way that none of us do. And it's high time you learned to share your space with your peers."

"But-.." Mello stammered, torn between feeling complimented and insulted. The contrast between the two was overwhelming him. And then he was struck by another, more mortifying realization. "But-... he isn't even toilet-trained yet!"

"Imagine how quickly he will be with the help of your expertise, then."

"And he eats chocolate off the floor! Who the hell _does_ that?!"

"I sincerely hope you haven't been feeding him nothing but chocolate, Mihael, because if that's the case, then I will be suspending your chocolate allowances for the rest of the year."

This threat fairly alarmed Mello, thinking of all the evidence in the other boy's closet, neatly-folded as it was. It wasn't like he could just run in there right at that moment to hide it all, either.

"Of course not, I have been bringing him his meals..."

"Good," said Roger in a tone that way much too cheery for Mello's liking. "Then it'll be much easier for you to continue helping him once you are all moved in."

Mello ground his teeth together, but argued no further than that. He simply could not risk losing his allowance of chocolate. If that were to happen, Mello and the new kid would _both_ be in trouble.

Later, as he was packing up all his belongings, he felt nothing but resentment towards both Roger _and_ the new kid. This was all his fault somehow. Somehow... although Mello had to admit that he was finding it difficult to explain that even to himself. He let out a sigh. No, he could not blame this on the other boy, much as he wanted to. It's not like he's the one who shoved the tree branch up Roger's ass...

With another sigh, he tried to look on the bright side. Maybe this would not be such a bad thing, anyway. The new kid _was_ his friend and he _was_ already spending a lot of time with him, after all. What's the worst that could happen?


End file.
